Global Trade and Commercial Networks : Pickering & Chatto Publishers : 9781848930872 : 01 Jun 2011 : At the heart of this study on cross-cultural trade lies a concrete case-study of a network of diamond merchants operating in the early eighteenth century. Trust was an important element within this cross-cultural network and a significant factor in its success. This trust was formed, over time, by the exchange of correspondence, allowing commercial friendships and a system of reciprocity to emerge. Such trusted exchange also allowed a system of credit ? used for almost all trading agreements as well as becoming important in itself ? to develop. Most of the merchants examined in this study belonged to a group of outsiders: an English Catholic in Antwerp, Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews in London and Amsterdam, and French Huguenots in Lisbon, to name a few. Traditionally, such diasporas have been seen as key to the development of a globalized economy. Vanneste argues that whilst this is gene